Georges HUGNET.

Correspondence addressed to Valentine Hugo. July 9, 1953 - September 10, 1958. 7 autograph letters signed: 7 p. in-8 on illustrated postcards, five envelopes kept. Friendly and spiritual correspondence, illustrated with an original collage, addressed to his "wonderful" friend, during the summers spent on the island of Ré, with his wife Myrtille and their son Nicolas. He describes the "very nice" house where they are living, on the "edge of the salt meadows and the dunes". On the back of the envelope, three autographed lines signed by Valentine Hugo: "Dear Georges / Happy birthday / Happiness for all and tenderness." Hugnet gathered an enormous amount of documentation for L'Aventure Dada, which was published in 1957. "The purpose of this story is to make the color of time shine. [...] Did you know Jacques Rigaut well? - Occasionally, Valentine, note for me a fact, an anecdote that paints a strong picture, which I might not think of." He thanks her warmly for her praise, "me who you know is not so spoiled by it". On the back of a card announcing the broadcast of his radio poem, Ici la voix, on August 25, 1954, he promises to send her "the thing": "I am anxious to submit to your supervision these dreams of a poet, barely changed into a painter." He evokes the invigorating climate of the island of Ré, "it whips the head and belts the belly, it exalts", the friendships they have made as well as their admirer, Suzy Solidor, "my payse". He attached a photograph of his son Nicolas (two years old). A few days later, he announces a forthcoming return to Paris: "All our friends - or almost - have left their summer residence. On the other hand there is Dominique Eluard and Claude Roy. There is also, hold on to your hat, Prince Youssoupof who would like to buy Suzy Solidor a house. The latter is, it is said, very close to his money and the prince, it is known, owes millions. What a sport!" The following summer, he describes a day after the 14th of July: "All that remains on the beach is the memory of a bonfire and the girls are clutching their thighs at a distraught secret." Assuring Valentine Hugo of their friendship, Myrtille and he are saddened by her loneliness and destitution, he adds that he has reserved a bound copy, on Arches, of Jean Hugo's Cheeks on Fire. "The island of Ré gives an idea of the island of Lesbos. Not so much because of Suzy Solidor, the tribad-corsair, but mostly because of the clitoral love affairs that are widespread among the summer girls. [...] Dramas are brewing under the shorts of these ladies!" The last letter is illustrated with an original collage. A photograph of a woman, with a leopard's head, sitting at a café terrace, cut out and pasted on a postcard with a night view of Paris. Rather than taking a copy for himself, Hugnet proposed to have Satie's letters to him photographed, promising to give him photographs of their house in Saint-Martin en Ré, as well as a film that he would edit himself. They will be back a few days before the referendum [of September 28, 1958, proposing a change in the French constitution]. A letter from Georges Hugnet to Lucien Scheler, L'Herbière, July 7, 1969, about the publication of the scandalous catalog of the bookstore Les Mains libres, the result of larcenies committed in the apartment of Valentine Hugo [who died on March 16, 1968] by Mr. "Grosalaud" [Jean Petithory] who claims to be the expert of the Saint-Denis Museum for the Eluard collection: "Is it in his attributions to insult in my person someone who has attacked the 'Dishonor of Poets' of Benjamin Péret. You are in a better position than anyone to know that Eluard was, in the underground, one of the main people responsible for it. You yourself directed the republication of it perfectly corrected and perfected" (3 p. in-8, envelope kept).